Menard is Brampton bound

Nick Czinder

(PETERBOROUGH) Peterborough Petes interim general manager Mike Oke tinkered with his line up on Tuesday (Jan. 8), making a pair of deals with the Kitchener Rangers and Brampton Battalion.
Petes’s leading scorer Francis Menard was shipped to the Battalion for a pair of draft picks, including Brampton’s third-round selection in 2014 and their sixth-round pick in 2015. Menard joined the Petes in the off-season via a trade with the Guelph Storm.
In 40 games with the maroon and white, Menard led the Petes with 15 goals and 18 assists. Oke says the Petes brass felt that dealing the overage forward for draft picks was the club’s best option moving forward.
“It was an opportunity to move a player that only has a few months left in his junior eligibility,” he explains
“It gives us an opportunity to acquire some draft picks that we can utilize for selection or utilize when making future transactions.”
The Petes also gained an eighth round selection in 2013, a fourth-round pick in 2015 (from Oshawa) and 20-year-old Nick Czinder from the Kitchener Rangers in exchange for overage forward Derek Schoenmakers and a 2013 10th round pick.
Schoenmakers was dealt to the Petes earlier in the year from the Windsor Spitfires in a trade that saw Trevor Murphy and Zach Lorentz head to the Spitfires while Schoenmakers and Brandon Devlin came to the Petes. Schoenmakers chose not the report to the Petes and went back to his hometown of Kitchener to play university hockey.
In Czinder, Oke says the Petes get a big body that can be utilized in the offensive zone and create some traffic in front of the net with some skills.
“He’s going to come in and he’s going to contribute and help us as we try to reel in those teams ahead of us for a playoff spot,” Oke says.
tvandonk@mykawartha.com